Research On Simulation And Compression Performance Of Fabric Switch Structure

Fabric switch as a kind of smart textiles and is woven using a number of flexible conductive yarns and insulating yarns. It not only retains the feature of traditional textiles, which is flexible and breathable, but also has the controlling circuits on-off function. Fabric switch can be woven into sleeves or domestic decorative materials for making calls, controlling illumination and other electronic equipments. Therefore it will play an important role in the field of wearable textiles and has broad application prospects.Compressibility is an important standard reflected the quality of fabric switch. To determine the fabric switch’s compressive performance, it has to be investigated by a method of pressing. This article is based on fabric switch structure and combined with actual material properties. The finite element method is used to simulate the pressing process and analyze the compressive deformation condition of the fabric switch. The influence of support part height, support part elasticity and insulating weft yarns material properties on the compressibility of fabric switch are discussed. The simulaton results can provide a guidance and reference for fabric switch weaving, reduce material consumption and save cost. Eventually, manufacturing the fabric switch with excellent performance can contribute to the development of smart textiles.Firstly, based on analysis and assumption of the through-interlocking fabric structure, the fabric switch basic model is set up by PRO/E 5.0. Finite element software ANSYS Workbench 14.5 with implicit methods is used to simulate the response process of fabric switch pressed by sphere, and analyze the deformation condition of fabric switch. The simulation load-displacement curve is obtained through extracting sphere reaction, included comparing with the curve obtained from compressibility test equipments. However, the results show that simulation and experiments are not matched ideally.Secondly, the improved fabric switch model is modeled, the support part of first part and the orifice part of second part consist of weaved yarns are simplified as solid cube, which is connected with the key area in the upper layer of the orifice part. On the basis of same simulation method, the response process of improved model pressed by sphere is simulated and the deformation condition of improved model is analyzed. Comparison between simulation and experiments shows matched agreements. The results prove that the improved model effectively solves the fixed support problem of the boundary condition of fabric switch basic model and improves the accuracy of simulation results.At last, conductive pressure is an important parameter reflected the compressibility of fabric switch. Basing on improved fabric switch model, the influence of support part height, support part elasticity and insulating weft yarns material properties on the conductive pressure of fabric swith are discussed. The results reveal that the performance by using two stranding nylon yarns in the second and third layers of the support part is better than the three stranding nylon yarns. The performance of the insulating weft yarns by using polyester staple fiber is better than the polyester filament. The performance by using polyester staple fiber in the second and third layers of the support part is a little better than the polyester filament.